Services
Fractional chief AI officer
A fractional chief AI officer gives the AI decisions at your company a named owner, without the $300,000-plus full-time hire most mid-size companies don't need yet.
What the fractional CAIO owns
The job is judgment with accountability attached: which AI initiatives get funded and in what order, the governance and guardrails the company runs under, vendor selection and budget decisions, and preparing the organization to eventually hire a full-time successor if the workload earns one. We resell nothing and take no vendor commissions, so a recommendation to buy a tool only ever has one reason behind it.
When companies bring one in
The pattern we see is less "we have no AI" and more "we have plenty of AI and nobody owns it." Pilots that worked in a demo and stalled on the way to production. Customers or auditors starting to ask governance questions nobody is assigned to answer. AI spend growing across departments with no one accountable for what it returns. All of these are ownership problems before they're technology problems, and a part-time senior owner fixes them faster than another project would.
How the engagement works
It starts the way every Tillerbridge engagement starts: with a fixed-scope assessment, so the fractional work begins from evidence about your systems rather than assumptions. Then a monthly retainer at an agreed cadence: strategy and priority calls, governance kept current as the tools change, vendor claims vetted before contracts are signed, and a standing seat in the leadership conversations where AI decisions actually get made. Where the strategy itself is the open question, the work overlaps with our AI strategy consulting, and we'll tell you which shape fits before you commit to either.
Two honest constraints. We take a limited number of these at a time so each one gets senior attention. And if your company genuinely has five days a week of AI leadership work, you should hire a full-time chief AI officer; part of this job, done properly, is telling you when that day arrives and helping you make the hire.
What it costs
We'd rather show you the market picture than write "contact us for pricing." Published retainers for ongoing AI advisory run $5,000–$15,000 per month, based on published ranges for ongoing AI advisory retainers. And the honest footnote: retainers at that band cover a steady advisory seat; embedded fractional leadership across a large organization prices well above it. Where a specific engagement lands depends on cadence and scope, and we put a number on it in writing after the assessment.
Questions people ask
- Is chief AI officer a real role?
- Yes, and an increasingly common one at large companies. What's genuinely open to question is whether your company needs it full-time. Published salary figures for the role run from roughly $250,000 to $400,000 a year, and most mid-size companies don't have five days a week of AI decisions to make. The fractional version exists for exactly that gap.
- What is the difference between a fractional CAIO and an AI consultant?
- Ownership. A consultant delivers a project and leaves; a fractional chief AI officer holds standing responsibility for outcomes: the strategy, the governance, the vendor and budget calls, on a continuing cadence. If what you need is a system built, that's AI consulting. If what you need is someone accountable for AI across the company, that's this.
- How much does a fractional chief AI officer cost?
- Published market retainers run $5,000–$15,000 per month, based on published ranges for ongoing AI advisory retainers. One caveat we'd rather state than hide: retainers at that band cover a steady advisory seat; embedded fractional leadership across a large organization prices well above it. For broader rate context across engagement types, see our AI consulting rates guide.
- How many days a week does the engagement take?
- A set cadence agreed up front, typically the equivalent of one to a few days a week depending on how much is moving. The authority is scoped in writing (which decisions the fractional lead owns, which stay with your executives) and the arrangement is monthly and easy to end.
Tell us about the work.
A few lines is enough. We read every enquiry ourselves and reply within one business day.